The Long Road Home

Ella listens. She corrects me when I’m wrong. Tells me when I’m thinking too much. Picks me up when I’m feeling down.

She has helped me in a lot of ways. She has helped build me up into a stronger person.

Piece by piece.

Bit by bit.

She helps me every day morph back into the person I used to be.

Sure, I still have days where I feel like I need to figure myself out. I had months where I wasn’t sure who to be, or how to be, or I had times where I wasn’t even sure why I was doing some of the things I did. That happens when you’re a mess inside. That happens when you feel destroyed and ruined.

And me, I was a dirty, stinking pile of trash mess.

And I thank God every day for Ella, the person who helped clean me up.

Chapter Four

Darkness creeps in.

Slowly.

On its toes.

With a paintbrush.

Splattering a murderous palette of blues and violets and whites across the star-filled sky. I stare up at the illuminated balls of fire through the thick glass of my windshield.

The sky reminds me of a Van Gogh painting.

Frenzied, circular brush strokes.

Swirled colors.

It’s all rather beautiful.

Rounder, fatter snowflakes land on my windshield and I flip my wipers into full speed. They hail down from the heavens with lightning speed and it’s making it impossible to see the car in front of me. It’s making it impossible to see the road. I squint, noticing slush that has morphed into shiny patches of ice and I ease my right foot off the gas pedal and tap my brakes to keep my tires from sliding.

I happen to love when it snows. I happen to love the frosty landscape with its white peaks of fluff, trees that look like they’ve been sprinkled with powdered sugar, and ponds thick with layers upon layer of ice. However, driving in it…yeah…not so much. When there is a little bit of snow on the road it’s not so bad, but when you’re stuck in the middle of a blizzard that’s when things get difficult.

That’s when Mother Nature shows you who’s boss.

That’s when you lose control.

That’s when disastrous accidents happen.

I should be paying close attention to the road, but I’m not. I still have way too much on my mind to concentrate. I’m far off, on a cloud, in my own little world with my bitter thoughts and my up and down emotions. I’m thinking so much that I almost miss the bright, red tail-lights on the car in front of me flash. I slam on my brakes in the nick of time, grinding my teeth as my car slides slightly to the left. I jerk forward in my seat, my seat belt cutting into my chest before I smack my head back against my head-rest. A throbbing pain nestles in the lower part of my neck. I wince and rub it counter clock-wise.

What the hell is going on?

I can’t see out my windshield because the snow is coming down harder and faster.

I look out my window.

Then the passenger side window.

Traffic in all three lanes has come to a complete stop.

I roll down the driver’s side window and stick my head out, looking behind me. There is at least a mile of cars backed up behind me. I shift and face forward. There has to be two miles of cars stopped in front of me.